Happy Carl Sagan Day Everyone!!!

“Cosmos is a Greek word for the order of the universe. It is, in a way, the opposite of
Chaos. It implies the deep interconnectedness of all things. It conveys awe for the intricate and subtle way in which the universe is put together.”

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge — even to ourselves — that we’ve been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise.)”

“You are worth about 3 dollars worth in chemicals.”

“Every star may be a sun to someone.”

“intellectual capacity is no guarantee against being dead wrong.”

“Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart; intelligence is not information alone but also judgement, the manner in which information is coordinated and used.”

“We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact. The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature.”

“Since, in the long run, every planetary society will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring — not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive.”

“This vast number of worlds, the enormous scale of the universe… has not been taken into account, even superficially, in virtually no religion, and especially in no Western religions.”

“In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed”? Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.”

“In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion.”

“The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.”

“Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves, but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.”

“In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.”

“There are many hypotheses in science that are wrong. That’s perfectly alright; it’s the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny…The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge and there is no place for it in the endeavor of science. We do not know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our mysterious and lovely solar system, and the history of our study of the solar system shows clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources.”

“Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth. Each of those worlds is as real as ours and every one of them is a succession of incidents, events, occurrences which influence its future. Countless worlds, numberless moments, an immensity of space and time. And our small planet at this moment, here we face a critical branch point in history, what we do with our world, right now, will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants, it is well within our power to destroy our civilization and perhaps our species as well. If we capitulate to superstition or greed or stupidity we could plunge our world into a time of darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilization and the Italian Renaissance. But we are also capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet.”

I have been reflecting quite a lot upon what I have learned with this podcast in this first year. It seems as though we have most certainly covered some of our favorite memories and moments yet there is more than just that. With lack of better ways of stating it, I love doing this shit. Hell I know I speak for both of us when I say that We love doing this shit. All the time, all the sacrifices, and all the the tedium is pretty inconsequential when you are looking back at the one year mark.

Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t been all roses. I have gotten confused about audio software more than once and Brewer has to explain it to me. There have been multiple instances where we have had some fantastic idea and it morphed into something even more ridiculous and grandiose only to be forgotten before it is time to record. Our scheduled date has fallen through and we have to come up with content on the fly more than once. Plus there have been more than a few moments when we truly get under the other’s skin. Stacking this teetering pile of ideas and agenda into an outlet to be heard has not always been easy.

Often times we have been much too involved in the here and now to appreciate the journey, but what a goddamn fun journey it has been. I rarely feel this level of pride in something I have participated in. This has been both cathartic and a method of self improvement. Being able to open up and share some of my thoughts has certainly served as a method to reevaluate what is worth worrying about. Often times I feel like my best conversations are shared with our illustrious listening audience. They have listened to me cackle until I was going to vomit and get riled up to the point of wanting to spit. You have laughed at my expense as I have been unable to expel a coherent though and hopefully once in a while I have managed a thought or two that has made you think.

All things considered, this has been one fun year and We owe it to our rouges gallery, our subscribers, our casual listeners and of course our vehement dissenters. BS appreciates you all and promises to continue to be bigger, better, faster and more inappropriate as we meander into the future.